Born Under a Bad Star Part III
by Deco
Summary: ObiWan finds the eleven year old Anakin more of a problem than he expected, and seeks help...
1. Default Chapter

Yes, I do know that I haven't posted in a very long time, on both this and Men Are From Mars. Sorry. DRL. Book 2 is nearly complete, but I'm having trouble closing the gaps in it. So on to Book 3--for now.

Born Under a Bad Star--Book Three

Chapter 1-The Alley

Excerpt from an interview given to Imperial Security

You know Damnation Alley, right? It's between the Outer Rim and the Unknown Regions, and it's a hang-out for the worse bunch of reprobates, thieves, murderers, liars, smugglers, con-men, and criminals in general. My kind of place, brother.

Oh, sorry. Captain brother, then.

Anyway--nobody uses their real names on the Alley. They use nicknames, or aliases, or fake identities. Providing fake ID was one of the growth industries there.

This guy you're asking about had a nickname-the Driver. It was short for 'designated driver' because he didn't indulge in hard liquor or spice, and so always ended up in that role. The Driver, to put it very mildly, wasn't your usual Alley type. He was a stolid, youngish feller, with the air of respectable mechanic or lesser bureaucrat. Hard-working type, you know--kinda reserved. We all rather liked him, which is not to say that we wouldn't have sold his vital organs on the open market for spice money, had we been given the chance. Just so you understand the local mores.

The Driver was unique on the Alley, for another reason, too. He was actually married, by the gods. Family values on the Alley meant you didn't kill your cousin unless you absolutely, positively needed his boots--it didn't extend to having little wifey at home complete with little babykins. But the Driver had both, and he had actually brought them with him to the Alley. Crazy, that was.

There were women on the Alley, of course. But they weren't the type you'd take home to mother, or take home at all, for that matter. Professionals, or demi-professionals. The Driver's Wife (or the Farmer's Daughter, which was her alternate nickname) looked as though she didn't know what 'professional' meant. Not beautiful, exactly, but what's the word?--wholesome. Yeah, wholesome. Healthy. Sane. A girl you would introduce to your mother. If you'd ever had one.

This made her one-of-a-kind in our little world. There were lots of more beautiful women around, but they were 'at-your-own-risk' proposition. Which means, of course, they were poxed to the eyebrows. Not the Driver's Wife. At least, we thought not.

Small children were very rare on the Alley, too, so to see this rosy-cheeked farm girl toting around a tow-headed toddler was kinda--well, you know, kinda surprising. We debated endlessly about what would be serious enough to bring the Driver and his family to the Alley. Now, I ask you, if you were on the run, wouldn't you leave the family behind? Damn right you would, especially if you were the type of man the Driver appeared to be. Safer, right? But the Driver didn't, which gave rise to all sorts of speculation on the Alley.

Maybe they were space grifters? But they didn't look, or more importantly, act like grifters. And we couldn't believe that either the woman or the child had a price on their heads. Officially, that is. Of course, after awhile there were people on the Alley who wanted to put a price on their heads, if you know what I mean.

Like Kelde Makran. Know him? I'm sure you do; he's got a record longer than the Spice Road to Kessel. All sorts of interesting things on it, too. Well, the Driver and his nice little family looked like a business opportunity to Kelde. The sort of opportunity that begins just about anywhere and ends in the Slave Markets on Chaldea. Gorgeous women generally bring the best prices there, but the Driver's family could have shaped up nicely, if you knew how to market them. And Kelde was a keen businessman, shall we say. The Driver himself was pretty young and a damn good pilot--maybe a thousand credits there. And there was always a market for unpoxed women. There's planets with a shortage, you know. And lots of men looking for company. No, no bordellos; get your mind out of the gutter. She wasn't the type. Farmers or miners looking for wives. Believe me, if they come from a planet with an exportable commodity, they have cash. Lots of it. Maybe another thousand there. And even the baby could have turned a credit or two. He was blond and blue-eyed, and kids like that are a premium on the adoption market in the Core Worlds.

So Kelde decided to exploit the available economical opportunities. The Driver's family looked like it had an extra large target painted on it, as far as he was concerned. Easy pickings, he thought.. As it turned out, he got a great big surprise. And then some.


	2. Bringing Up Baby

Chapter Two--Bringing Up Baby

They had been on the run now for nearly a year. They had dodged Imperials, Jedi Extermination Squads and the Jedi themselves. It was an unsettled, often dangerous way of life. Owen loved it.

He supposed it must be different for Beru. Women hated having no home, didn't they? But then, Beru had been raised as a space brat. Maybe that made a difference. Because she didn't appear to mind their lifestyle. It never failed to surprise him, but Owen didn't kid himself that he understood his wife. He didn't. Even with the Force to help him with the addition, he had a hard time working out her answer.

There had been no sign of Obi-Wan since they had left Bakanir, and Beru had decided that they had lost him. Owen knew better: if they had not seen him, then he had given up the chase. Owen also knew, or at least suspected, that this was temporary. Eventually, the Council would intervene in the matter of Luke; just now, however, they were concerned with other, more urgent matters.

Since Bakanir, they had sought refuge on several planets, but there had always been a reason to move on. Sometimes to avoid Imperial activity; sometimes to avoid the Jedi; once Owen had narrowly avoided being press-ganged into a local war. On their last planet, they had heard rumours of Squad activity in the system, and had fled before it had reached them. Damnation Alley was the only quick avenue of escape, and they decided to take it.

The Alley was a narrow route between the most remote area of the Middle and Outer Rims. It was littered with worm holes, small planets, asteroids, and space junkyards. An ideal place to hide out, if you needed to, and most of the population did. It was known as Damnation Alley for good reasons--it was the haunt of criminals, fugitives, refugees, the flotsam and jetsam of a hundred worlds.

Owen quickly found a job on the Alley-good pilots were always at a premium-but it became obvious early on that it was not a long term sanctuary. The Alley wasn't a safe place by any stretch of the imagination. True, it was generally free of Imperials. But a place that was free of Imperials because they were frightened of the ordinary inhabitants was not exactly an ideal refuge. It was dangerous--Owen knew that. And dirty. And eye-poppingly--well, open-minded. Owen had expected Beru to be disgusted by some of the things they saw. But she seemed unfazed. Yet she agreed with Owen about the short-term nature of their residence on the Alley. Not that he expected her to disagree when the three of them were propositioned a total of ten times on their first shopping expedition in Central, the Alley's informal capital. Beru garnered six offers, Owen three, and one man offered hard cash for the baby. Owen wondered if the potential buyer had even a clue of the aggravation quotient of his proposed purchase. He suggested to Beru that they accept the offer, as the poor fool would no doubt offer them an additional sum to take Luke back, given a day or two in his company. Easy money. Beru was not noticeably amused by this sally, and she gave him the Look. Owen had come to know the Look well. It meant: "That's not funny, and just for the record: Shut up." Owen also knew that obeying the Look was essential for marital peace.

Luke was now nearly two years old. In one way, Owen knew, he and Beru had already subverted a traditional Jedi future for Luke; he could not now go to the creches. In Owen's opinion, he was a child totally unsuited to such a fate, in any case. It required the undivided and focused attention of two Force-strong adults to keep him under control as it was. Owen was only thankful that Beru had not felt obliged to foster Luke's twin as well. The thought of Luke in stereo made Owen's blood run cold.

Since discovering the question mark at sixteen months, as Owen remarked drily to Beru, Luke had become a terror. "What's that?" and "Why?" were his favorites, though he did not disdain "How?" "Where?" and "When?" either. If his question was not answered in a millisecond, Luke would simply repeat it until it was. The 'terrible twos' arrived nearly a year early. Luke never stopped talking, asking questions, climbing, exploring or taking things apart. No button remained unpushed, no lever unpulled when Luke was around.

Beru stoutly maintained that this was normal behaviour for a Jedi child Luke's age, but in fact neither of them were sure of anything regarding Jedi children. They were raised in the creches and that was that. Owen had heard many a theory why this ancient Jedi tradition was necessary, none of which he particularly believed. Well, amend that---he did believe one of them, though it wasn't the one commonly offered to the public. Supposedly ordinary people, especially those without the Force, could not be trusted to raise Jedi children. But that was true, why admit Aestri to the Jedi ranks? The reason was simple enough; the Jedi could not keep up their numbers otherwise. The Council had been particularly baffled by the reaction of the Aestri to an attempted dictum that all their Force-strong children had to go to the creches: most either immediately left the Order, or they had no further children. Only a very small fraction--the most ambitious ones--complied. The dictum was sheepishly withdrawn: the Aestri were allowed to keep their younger children if they wanted, but they could not become full Jedi. The eldest Force-strong child in each family went to the creches, as this was the galaxy-wide rule for all Force-strong children, and the Jedi could not exempt their own. This uneasy compromise had held for some generations, but was now in the process of breaking down. Owen, who did not particularly want to become a full Jedi, had never been involved in the debate. But he could see a schism coming, just at the time when unity was necessary. His sympathies, when he thought about it at all, lay with the Aestri. The creches seemed to him to be more of a habit among the Jedi than anything else, and he'd had a first hand view of the suffering they caused.

Still, it meant that he and Beru had to raise a child that would try the patience of the most powerful of Jedi Masters. Owen had to admit, at least to himself, that fatherhood had not been among his few ambitions in life. He cared little that Beru was sterile, though he knew she deeply regretted it. In fact, in his eyes, it was an advantage. He had hoped for her undivided attention.

And so sharing Beru with Luke proved something of a disappointment to Owen. Yet despite everything, his heart went out to the child. He knew what it was like to be an orphan-not that Luke was really without parents. Better for him if he had been, Owen thought, and since both Luke's biological parents were currently homicidal, he was prepared to shoulder the burden of paternity, at least for now.

But it did concern him that Beru assumed that their fostering of Luke was permanent. Anakin, for instance, might decide at any time that the paternity of the twins was not in issue. Owen was positive he and Beru, even at their best, could not fight off a Sith Lord. Then there was Amidala. "What if she gets better?" Owen had asked Beru. "And wants him back? What would you do then?"

"What would _we_ do?" Beru had corrected him, eyes hard. "We'd keep him. It's too late for her to demand him back, Owen. Yes, she's his mother. But in this case, he does get a vote, and I don't think he'd vote for her."

Owen loved Beru too much to disillusion her. Beru imagined that Luke's intransigence on being separated from her meant that Amidala and the Council had no choice in the matter. She did not realize that there were other alternatives. And she would not find that out from him. Not yet, anyway. For unbeknownst to Beru, Owen was keeping something from her. He had shielded a small portion of his mind, and there he kept, not intimate matters, but certain facts. It would torture her to know, and he did not see any point in telling her. She had her hands full with Luke as it was.

Owen knew that Beru bitterly resented any intimation that Luke controlled or manipulated her. And yet the child definitely had an effect on their behavior with each other. They discovered, for instance, that they could not fight in front of him. Beru had a sharp tongue, and Owen a ready temper: and they rather enjoyed a good fight. It cleared the air, and making up was--well, it was interesting. But Luke dreaded raised voices and open hostility. During one of their fights, he had a Force-tantrum so severe that he reduced the furniture in the room to matchsticks in a matter of minutes. After that, they confined their disagreements to discussions after Luke was in bed and asleep. They realized that a fight between them symbolized instability to a child who had already too much chaos in his life.

They experienced numerous other difficulties with Luke as he grew out of babyhood. He rarely slept; he rarely ate; and he rarely stopped moving. But the thing about him that most thoroughly exasperated Beru was his lack of physical fear. If there was a light fixture in a room, she said bitterly, you could bet your last credit that Luke would be hanging from it, either by his teeth or his toes. It just depended upon his mood. Owen pretended to agree with her on this. It was terrible, he would intone solemnly, shaking his head as she complained. But in fact, the child's utter fearlessness secretly delighted him, hitting a buried chord in his own outwardly cautious personality.

Beru also despaired of Luke's eating habits; his food remained untasted on his plate while he was doing something that interested him more: asking questions. It was a wonder Owen and Beru got any food themselves, they were so busy fielding a blizzard of inquiries in Luke's never-ending quest for information.

As a result, there was scarcely a pick of flesh on Luke's bones. Beru feared the consequences if he became sick, and tried stuffing him with supplements. They generally found the half-chewed capsules under the table later. Owen was amused by Luke's intransigence on the subject. The child adored Beru and seldom defied her. But when he did, she didn't prevail. Well, nearly always. When Luke decided that the place he most wanted to sleep was between his foster parents in their bed, even Beru rebelled. Owen watched the subsequent fight to the finish with not a little fascination. Beru would put Luke into his own bed; ten minutes later he was cuddled between them. Beru put him back in his bed. Ten minutes later...this went on all night. Owen did and said nothing: he sensed that this battle was the definitive one between Beru and Luke and would govern their relationship from then on.

Finally even Beru's patience snapped and she said to Owen: "Suppress him."

Owen's brows had risen. "Suppress him? I seem to recall you telling me that it was unfair to suppress natural childish behaviour."

"Damn what I said. Suppress him."

"Can't cope without me, eh?" Owen couldn't help saying.

Beru inspected him with narrowed eyes. Then she gave him a glittering smile: "Well, I guess I don't really mind him sleeping between us--forever. Now that I think about it."

Owen gulped, and did what he was told. He fully expected Luke to hold it against him. Oddly enough, though, the child did not. But on a few occasions thereafter, Owen caught the child staring at him in a considering way. There was no hostility in Luke's gaze; at least, none that Owen could see. He seemed suddenly curious about Owen, or perhaps more curious than he had been in the past.

Their relationship with Luke was an odd one, in Owen's opinion. Luke called them 'Ma' and 'Da' for public consumption, but Owen was not sure Luke perfectly understood the concepts behind the titles. He did understand that Beru was his caregiver, and appeared to regard Owen as her trusted bodyguard and factotum. Not so far wrong, Owen thought ironically.

Owen tried hard to assume a paternal role with the child, a difficult matter for him, as even he admitted to lacking patience. And in Luke's case, patience was definitely required. He tried to teach Luke things, but was frustrated by Luke's inability to keep his mind on a single subject for more than the blink of an eye. They concluded that wasn't his fault: Luke was being bombarded by the Force with endless stimuli. Owen discovered that keeping the child under mild suppression filtered out most of these images. It also allowed Luke to sleep at night. But when Luke was upset or angry, mild suppression was not adequate. Owen and Beru learned this the hard way.

They required something in Central--later, Owen could never remember what it was. Beru and Luke, after their first experience, rarely accompanied him to the Den of Thieves, which was her nickname for the Alley capital. Central was actually a series of eccentrically connected space stations of various ages and conditions, and was the informal staging post, stock exchange, and labour recruitment stop for the Alley. One could buy literally anything in Central, except, as Beru said darkly, souls. Owen agreed that most citizens of the Alley had sold theirs long before. But Owen considered Central reasonably safe if you watched yourself at all times.

He was to be disabused of this notion rather brutally.

In a street that had appeared deserted, Owen was seized from behind; he hit the ground with a thump. He was disoriented for only a moment. He broke his attacker's grip and fumbled for his blaster. It was out in a second. He hit the attacker with a bolt in the chest and he fell backward. Two other men closed in on him.

At first Owen feared they had been attacked by a Squad. To his relief, he picked up through the Force that this was a local matter-they were slavers. There were five of them, in the ordinary event enough to overpower two adults and an infant. Three attackers were allocated to him, and two to Beru and Luke.

Beru was scarcely helpless, as he well knew. But she was hampered by her need to protect the child. She had Luke in her arms, and had his face pressed into her neck. Two thugs closed in on her on either side. One of them had reached out to grab Beru's arm. At least Owen thought that's what he had been doing. It was now difficult to tell; the attacker was now spinning helplessly in the air, suspended about two feet above the ground.

Owen fired his blaster into the air; the other thugs, already unnerved by their revolving confrere, were sufficiently frightened to disperse. But the first thug remained, still spinning.

"Beru, stop it!" Owen hissed at her. Beru gave him a despairing look and shook her head. Owen realized that she was not causing it. That meant--

--Luke. Owen looked at the child, who was glaring at the spinning thug with a fierce intensity. He walked quickly over to Beru and took Luke from her arms. Luke accepted the transfer, but did not stop his stare. Owen shook him, gently. Luke finally looked at him; there was a muffled thud in the background as the thug hit the ground. Owen gave the child back to his wife and stood ready for action, blaster drawn. It was hardly needed; the thug was so dizzy he immediately vomited. Owen searched and disarmed him without any resistance, and then kicked him sharply in the ribs.

"Who sent you?" he asked.

The man's reaction was unnerving: silent, flat on his belly, his eyes round and staring, he inched backward. Owen could have stopped him, but to what end? There was no law on the Alley.

But the man's complete abasement sickened Owen. He was afraid; and of a child in arms. Their attacker finally scrambled to his feet and fled.

Owen looked at Beru. She was very pale. Luke was weeping in her arms, at a decibel level that indicated that he was seriously overwrought. That was serious; a public Force tantrum, if he had one, would attract unwanted attention.

Owen took Luke from Beru and sat the child on his knees, facing him. Beru hovered at the edge of his vision, a disapproving shadow. He knew she wanted to interfere. Stay out of it. You wanted me to be his father. So now you let me do it. he sent to her through the Force. She stiffened, but withdrew to stand against the wall.

Owen took this as the vote of confidence it was.

Luke hung his head. His fear and confusion roiled through Owen's Force sense. Owen lifted the child's chin and looked him in the eyes. "I'm not angry with you, Luke," he said. "You protected your Ma. That's good. I'm proud of you." Luke did not look reassured, possibly because he was picking up their ill-concealed horror through the Force.

Owen did not want Luke using the Force, especially at his age. Uncontrolled Force use could attract a Squad. Yet, if one did show up, they might need his abilities, if it came to that. Owen held his gaze, and wondered frantically how to make the distinction clear to a child this young. Most children were forbidden to use the Force unsupervised until they became padawans at age twelve. Luke was not yet two, and Owen had just seen him do, unbidden and untaught, something many adult Jedis could not.

Owen knew there were rumours that Anakin had been a volatile. Luke had quite obviously inherited the tendency. Without suppression, Luke was the ultimate loose cannon. And Owen was not absolutely sure how long he would be able to suppress him.

"Don't do that again, Luke," Owen said to Luke, "unless Ma or I tell you to." Luke stared at him, wide-eyed.

"He doesn't understand----!" Beru said.

Owen gave her a fiery glance, and she subsided.

Owen carefully sent mental images to the child, trying to make his meaning clear. "You understand me, Luke, don't you?" Owen asked him.

Luke stared up at him and after a pause, nodded.

Beru muttered something under her breath that Owen prudently did not hear.

"I guess this is where we kick the wall," he said to her, "they'll have it figured out in no time. And as soon as they do, they'll sell us out to the Squads. How soon can you pack?"

"I'm packed already," Beru said.


	3. The Past is Another Country

Chapter Three--The Past is Another Country

Owen's childhood had been overshadowed by the central event in his parent's lives; the loss of his older brother Ben at the age of six months. Not that Ben had died, of course. Sometimes, Owen wondered if it wouldn't have been easier on the family if he had. Instead, two Jedi had appeared on the farm one morning and instructed the Kenobis that Ben was a Jedi candidate, and as such was forfeit to the Order by galactic law. Owen heard the story from his mother many times, but the telling of it did little assuage her bitterness. The Jedi had been scrupulous, as was their wont. The Kenobis were given a written list of exemptions, none of which applied to Ben, and the Jedi made off with their prize before the stunned parents had time to react.

It had been a very long time before his parents had another child.

Eventually, they saved enough money for a legal opinion of their chances of losing a second child to the Jedi. They were assured that the second child exemption would protect them, and Owen had been born.

Yet, like a bad dream, the Jedi reappeared when Owen turned six months old.

His mother had exploded. "Why are you here?" she cried. Accordingly to what Owen heard later, the two Knights on her doorstep coolly explained that Ben had proved a gifted candidate. Therefore, they wanted to check on Owen's abilities. "But you can't take him anyway!" his mother exclaimed. "We have the second child exemption!" That's when the Jedi informed her, uneasily, that they could apply for an override the exemption should the prospective candidate prove gifted enough. It did not occur to Owen's mother to question this assertion; she did not answer them at all. She had slammed the door of the homestead and locked it. Owen's father had returned home from servicing the vaporators to discover the Jedi on his doorstep, vainly trying to open the barricaded door and persuade his hysterical wife not to kill herself and their son.

The Jedi backed off, nervously telling the Kenobis that they obviously had a 'medical' exemption. Owen's father suggested to them that their immediate absence would be appreciated. They took the hint.

But they left chaos behind them. Owen's mother refused to have any further children. Owen was raised alone, unusual on Tatooine, where very large families were the norm. It enforced the Kenobi's poverty: their farm suffered from a shortage of labor. It made Owen's parents anxious, over-protective and suspicious.

If Owen chaffed at the isolated and lonely life he led, the problem resolved itself in a tragic way. The year he turned fifteen, macule fever ravaged the Rim Worlds. By reason of its scattered population, Tatooine felt reasonably secure against this plague. But it proved adaptable and had spread by means of Tatooine's abundant rodent population.

First his father sickened and died. His mother had followed within a few days. Owen caught the fever but didn't die of it. The med-droids had congratulated him on his survival, but he scarcely felt like celebrating the event.

The question of what to do with him then came up. The farm was just workable with two adults and one adolescent. But one person alone could not keep everything running. The homestead that his parents had laboured so hard over was then abandoned to the dunes and the Tatooinian authorities had contacted Ben.

And so the fabled brother of his mother's stories came to fetch the sibling he had never even met. Owen's first real sight of his much-talked-of elder brother was in the quarantine hospital in Tatooine. He was still recovering from the fever that had killed his parents; and even he knew that he was a miserable-looking object-a tall, clumsy, gauche adolescent, half-sick and wholly wretched. Ben had appeared to him to be a god-like being from another planet. This handsome, urbane young man had looked at the only surviving member of his family, and his face had fallen. Another minute, and he recovered himself, and he comforted the desolate Owen; but Owen ever after remembered the flash of what he had taken to be disappointment that had crossed his face that day. He had been mortified, but he felt the justice of Ben's reaction. It was not for many years that he learned the true reason for Ben's recoil from him that day.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Siblings

The day after his reunion with his brother, Owen awoke to find himself in bed in a darkened room. The only other person present was a small boy, seated cross-legged on the floor._ I must be dead, _Owen thought vaguely. _Because he's glowing. _He looked around the the room. _I guess I didn' t go to heaven, unless heaven is a lot drearier than I thought. _He glanced back at the boy, and noticed than he was now standing beside his bed. He still glowed, with a transparent golden light shining about him, like a pale aura.

"Shall I get Obi-Wan?" the child was asking. He had a Tatooine accent, yet he was dressed in a distinct Core World style that Owen did not recognize, with a short braid on one side of his head.

_Obi-Wan is my brother's Jedi honorific. I remember that now. But who is this boy?_

"I"m Anakin Skywalker," the child answered his question, though Owen could not remember speaking it aloud.

"If your name is Skywalker, why are you dressed like that?" Owen said, startled by the raspy sound of his own voice. "That's a Tatooine name."

"I'm from Tatooine," the boy said, "and I'm dressed like this because I'm Obi-Wan's padawan learner."

Owen saw a carafe of water on a small table by his bed. His throat was terribly dry. The child followed his glance, and immediately poured out a glass of water and handed it to him.

_I don' t even have to talk to him. It's creepy._

"You're broadcasting," the child said matter-of-factly.

"Broadcasting?" Owen asked.

"Loudly," the child said, smiling a little. "In your mind. I can hear it."

Owen sipped his water. "You seem a little young to be a padawan," he observed. "Don't they start at twelve?" He remembered this stray fact from his parents. His mother, in particular, had been bitter than Ben had been taken by the Jedi at six months, when they did not even intend to apprentice him until adolescence. What was the point of that? she had wondered. Owen wondered, too. And he wondered why the rules did not seem to apply to this boy, who looked no more than ten or eleven.

The child's face clouded. "They weren't going to let me be trained, because I was nine when I joined the Order," he said. "But they changed their minds."

"Why?"

The child's voice dropped to a whisper. "Qui-Gon asked Obi-Wan to train me. Qui-Gon was Obi-Wan's Master. And Obi-Wan convinced the Counsel to let him do it. It's because I'm really strong with the Force."

Owen felt rather amused by the child's air of juvenile self-importance. "How nice for you," he commented dryly.

The child sensed, perhaps, that Owen was making fun of him. His eyes flashed. "I can do other things, too!" he cried. "I was a pod-racer when I lived here!"

Owen's amusement vanished. "That's a lie," he said flatly, feeling tired and no longer interested in the conversation. "There are no human pod racers."

"I won the Boonta Eve race two years ago!" the child said, angrily. "I won my freedom!" He stopped abruptly.

_A slave, then. He wasn't going to tell me that, either._

It's none of your business!" Anakin shouted.

"Don't yell," Owen muttered. "My head's throbbing as it is."

The child stormed to the door, and managed to collide with Obi-Wan in the process.

"Hold on, Anakin!" he said, surprised, catching him by his shoulders. "What's going on?"

"He insulted me!" Anakin said, clutching Obi-Wan's sleeve, and pointing at Owen, who was still in bed.

"Sit down," Obi-Wan said to the child. Owen could sense that he was trying to be patient. "I' m sure Owen didn't mean to hurt your feelings." He looked pointedly at Owen.

"I didn't say anything," Owen said sullenly. "He kept reading my mind." Obi-Wan looked surprised, but said nothing. Owen looked back at him and was astonished all over again that this glamorous stranger was his brother. There was nothing of the moisture farmer about him at all. Nothing of Tatooine. Nor could Owen see any obvious sign of either of his parents.

"This isn't the medcentre," Owen asked, "Is it?"

Obi-Wan sighed. "No. They wouldn't keep you. With the plague so wide-spread, they had no room for convalescents. This is a hostel. Not a good one, as I'm sure you've noticed. The good ones were afraid of infection."

Anakin tugged Obi-Wan's sleeve again. "Obi-Wan!" he exclaimed. "Is the Mos Espa quarantine lifted yet?"

"No, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, gently. "Not yet. Just be patient. Go and see if they are serving dinner yet."

Anakin made a face at Owen as he departed. Owen felt too tired to be irritated. Obi-Wan sat down at Owen's bedside. Gracefully, as he seemed to do all things. Owen stared at him.

"I've talked to the Darklighters," he said, mentioning a large family who farmed near the Kenobi smallholding. "They lost one of their sons--he was your age--in the plague, and they seem interested in taking you in.

_Ferin. It must be Ferin. Everybody loved him, so of course, he's the one who died._

"Owen?" Owen tried to pay attention. He nodded, and his brother, reassured, continued:"They'll run the farm and keep its production until you're old enough to take it over. It seems like a fair exchange."

"Why does he glow?" Owen heard himself asking. Obi Wan paused, giving Owen a confused glance; then he stood up and stooped over Owen, feeling his forehead.

"You don't seem feverish---"

"That boy," Owen said. "Why does he glow like that?"

"Anakin?"

"Yes. A sort of golden glow all over, you can see through it."

"He doesn't---" Obi-Wan stopped. "I guess you need some rest, Owen."

"Maybe," Owen muttered into his pillow.

Obi-Wan paused and then went on: "We can't expect the Darklighters to take you until you're fully recovered. So here we are until you are. The doctors say you need three to four weeks of convalescence."

Owen didn't bother to reply; he simply closed his eyes. After a minute or two, Obi-Wan took the hint. He rose, and Owen could hear him leaving the room. _He never mentioned our parents; not once,_ he thought bitterly.

Owen was asleep; well---not actually asleep, but in that drowsing period between sleep and waking--- when a shriek exploded in his mind. He became instantly awake. It was---he thought---early morning. The room was grey and empty. He rose quickly and staggered to the door, opening it. The hallway, too, was empty. There was no reaction from the other rooms in the hostel; no one else appeared to have heard what he had. Maybe, he thought, as he leant trembling against the door frame, it was a dream. He was looking doubtfully toward his bed when another shriek nearly drove him to his knees. He fumbled for his leggings and tunic and hastily put them on. When he peered out into the hallway, he still found it deserted. Had everyone left him alone? Another fear assailed him; perhaps everyone else had died of plague, and he was truly alone. Just as Owen began to panic, Anakin burst around the corner of the hallway at a dead run and cannoned into him, knocking him over, and falling over him. Obi-Wan was close behind the younger boy. He caught Anakin around the waist before he could get to his feet, and bore him, kicking and struggling, into Owen's room, and motioned to his brother to shut the door. Owen did so, feeling more and more mystified.

"What is it?" he asked Obi-Wan. "What's wrong?"

Obi-Wan didn't answer--he was obviously having a difficult time controlling Anakin. The golden light that surrounded Anakin when Owen looked at him had turned harsh and blinding. The child's eyes were shut tightly and his arms and legs were moving so fast they were blurring in Owen's sight. Obi-Wan was holding on to him, but just barely. Yet another shriek seared through Owen's mind; it was much more painful than the other two. Closer range, Owen thought: it was Anakin he had heard. If he does that again, I think he'll kill me. He leant against the wall and closed his eyes. In his mind's eye, he saw a brilliant light, roiling feverishly over a dark sea. The light was growing ever brighter, and instinct warned Owen that he must stop it before it exploded. He imagined the sea rising up and smothering the light, dashing against it; eventually extinguishing it entirely. The blasting light slowly faded and then disappeared. Owen opened his eyes. Obi-Wan was on his knees on the floor, cradling an unconscious Anakin in his arms. He was staring at his brother.

"How did you do that?" he asked, sounding astonished.

"Do what?" Owen asked. He slid slowly down the wall and sat on the cold, dusty floor. Obi- Wan gathered Anakin up and laid him gently on Owen's bed. He then seized a blanket and wrapped it around Owen.

"I'm taking him to the medcentre," he said. "Wait here."

_As if I could move, anyway, _Owen thought dully. Eventually, Obi-Wan did return, and helped Owen back into his bed, and sat down beside him. He regarded his brother in silence.

"Is he alright?"Owen asked eventually.

Obi-Wan sighed. "I hope so. They've sedated him."

What's wrong with him?" Owen asked.

"I had promised him he could visit with his mother, who was living in Mos Espa," Obi-Wan said, clasping his hands together. They were trembling, Owen noticed. "I don't know if you know this, but she's a slave." Owen nodded. "That area was quarantined, so we had to wait. Today, the quarantine was lifted, and we found that the slave quarters had been fired by the Hutts when the plague hit. With the sick people still inside them."

Owen felt his stomach drop. He looked up at Obi-Wan. "And his mother?" Owen asked.

"He found her house," Obi-Wan said, sounding very tired. "It was burnt out. She was inside; or what was left of her was." Owen closed his eyes tightly and tried to forget his own parents.

"At first he was very quiet. In shock, I think. Then he had---an episode? I don't know how to describe it---I've never felt anything like it in the Force before. I tried to calm him, but I couldn't. He was---not hysterical, I suppose---but just _wild._ Like the Force possessed him completely."

Obi-Wan then looked at Owen. "But you stopped him. How did you do it?"

Owen hesitated. "You know that light I told you about, the one that shines around Anakin?" he said. "This time I could see in my mind. I imagined smothering it..." he stopped, seeing the expression on his brother's face. Obi-Wan Kenobi looked horrified.

"Did I do something wrong?" Owen asked anxiously, after the silence grew rather lengthy. "Did I hurt him?"

"No, Owen, of course you didn't hurt him," Obi-Wan said quickly. "In fact, you saved the day. It's just---"

"Just what?"

"Well, I suppose I should have guessed that you had the Force," Obi-Wan said. His voice sounded strained.

"The Force?" Owen shook his head. "I'm not a Jedi."

"But you do have the Force," Obi-Wan said. "Quite strongly. I can't think why I didn't notice it before, but it's common for Aestri to be latents. Aestri are Jedi that haven't joined the Order as infants, by the way. It's a pity that you weren't taken into the Order when you were younger---"

"They tried," Owen said.

"They?"

"The Jedi. They came to test me when I was a baby. Didn't you know?" And he told Obi-Wan the story. Obi-Wan hadn't known, Owen could sense it. In fact, Owen could suddenly sense things far more clearly and completely than he had in the past. It was, Obi-Wan told him, the Force. Once a latent had been triggered, the Force was with them. It made Owen very uneasy. He wanted nothing to do with the Force or the Jedi, for that matter, as they had been the villains in every one of his mother's stories.

The weary days of Owen's convalescence crawled by. He did not see Anakin, who was still in the medcentre, despite the shortage of beds. Obi-Wan avoided his questions on the subject, and he did not press it.

If he hoped to form a stronger relationship with his brother during these days, he was doomed to disappointment. Obi-Wan was distant and distracted, and spent a good deal of time cross-legged on the floor, doing something he called meditation. Communing with the Force, he told Owen, when Owen asked him what meditation was. Ask a stupid question, Owen thought to himself. An even stupider question was what Obi-Wan was communing with the Force about, and indeed, Obi- Wan had told him that he wouldn't understand the answer.

"Try me," Owen had said, irritated. Obi-Wan hadn't answered, which Owen was to learn, was his usual reaction to questions to which he did not want to respond. But when the fourth week of Owen's convalescence ended, he abruptly announced that Owen would be accompanyingthem back to Corsucrant.

"But, you said--the Darklighters--aren't I staying?"

"I've changed my mind," Obi-Wan said coldly.

Owen felt his spine stiffen. When Obi-Wan had disposed of his future earlier, he had been resigned. He had not wanted to stay on Tatooine; the place smelt of death, and held too many bad memories. He had desperately hoped Obi-Wan would elect to take him off-planet, but when his brother told him his plans, it had never occurred to him to beg him to change his mind. You didn't ask for favors, especially not from strangers, and despite the blood tie, that's essentially what Obi-Wan was to him. Yet now that he _was_ going off-planet, he was afraid. Tatooine was both boring and dangerous, but he knew both the boredom and the danger intimately. The unknown loomed before him like a threat.

"Do I get a vote here?"

Obi-Wan gave him a look that he could not interpret. His expression was bleak.

"Not this time, Owen," he said, very quietly, so quietly that Owen could think of nothing to say. Almost.

"What will I do on Corsucrant?" he asked.

"Join the Order," Obi-Wan said, trying to smile, and not quite managing it.

Owen scowled. "I don't want to be a Jedi!" he exclaimed.

Obi-Wan stood up, with an air of finality. "We leave tomorrow," he said.


End file.
